Tolerance and Indifference

I've long harboured a rather contradictory attitude towards prejudice. Sometimes I find prejudice maddening, other times I find myself defending it-- indeed, sometimes I find myself thinking of it as a sign of health.

I think it comes down to this formula: it's good to avoid prejudice through tolerance (or broadmindedness), but it's bad to avoid it through indifferentism. It's especially bad to congratulate yourself on tolerance when you're simply indifferent.

And I'll go so far as to say that, sometimes, prejudice-- or even bigotry-- seems preferable to indifference. To me, anyway.

There was an epidemic of ersatz tolerance in the Ireland of my youth. Citizens of the Republic looked down on their Northern counterparts and wondered why they couldn't just "get over" or "get past" the Protestant-Catholic enmity.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe that it's highly desirable for Christians to "get over" the Protestant-Catholic enmity. In fact, I've complained about Catholic triumphalism regularly on this blog. (I've never really encountered Protestant triumphalism.)

But secularists have absolutely no right to congratulate themselves on overcoming the Protestant-Catholic division. Why should they congratulate themselves on this? They think it's irrelevant anyway. The same applies to wishy-washy Christians.

Personally, I am all for ecumenism-- but all against an ecumenism of indifference. If you don't think doctrinal differences matter, you're not really ecumenical anyway. You're a non-denominational Christian, or a mere theist, or something of that sort.

Even by the time I was growing up, most people in the Republic had effectively become secularists, even if they retained a cultural or sentimental tinge of Christianity. So they really had no right to lecture (or even congratulate) their Northern cousins on tolerance. It was a non-issue for them.

For the most part, of course, the Northern Irish conflict wasn't really about religion. But there were people for whom it was fundamentally about religion, such as Dr. Ian Paisley. And for many others, religion entered into it to some real degree.

It was the declared policy of the United Irishmen, founded in 1791, to unite "Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter", and this became a watchword of Irish republicanism ever since. Personally, I've always felt ambivalent about this motto, and about the "non-sectarian" nature of Irish republicanism. Insofar as it was inspired by the Voltairean ideas of the French Revolution, I consider it a bad thing. (I get the impression that most United Irishmen were not Voltairean, though.)

I apply the same principle to nationality. There's no virtue in rising "above" nationality if you don't care about nationality. Honestly, I would feel more affinity with any national chauvinist than I would with a cosmopolitan or internationalist.

The truth is that I've come to feel more affinity with the Northern Irish Orangemen than I do with almost all of their critics-- precisely because they do care about national loyalties, religious belief, and cultural traditions.

Similarly, I'm very dubious about most advocates for a united Ireland today. I suspect they want to get rid of the border because they want to get rid of all national borders. And personally I would rather have ten more borders on the island of Ireland than get rid of the current border in that spirit, or with such allies.

I've mentioned my lifelong anglophilia in many previous posts. Honestly, I probably love English culture more than I love Irish culture. Naturally enough, I have a bit of an allergy to anti-Englishness.

And yet I can't disagree with this point made by D.P. Moran in his book The Philosophy of Irish Ireland (1905): "The cry of the friendly Englishman fully responded to by the “reasonable” Irishman is, “Let us know more about Irishmen and let Irishmen know more about us; we will learn to like and understand one another.” As against this view it is absolutely clear to me, though the expression may appear to have some of the form of a “bull,” that when two nations understand one another there is from that moment only one nation in it. International misunderstanding is one of the marks of nationhood."

Well, I think I have made my point.